'Routine clarification' of Nova Scotia's wetlands policy omitted any mention of salt marshes. Was it intentional?

Salt marsh located somewhere on the shore of Baie Verte, New Brunswick. Photo: Linda Pannozzo

A “routine clarification” issued by the Department of Environment to staff about how to apply the province’s wetland policy omitted any mention of salt marshes—something that was not mentioned in a CBC news report yesterday.

According to the CBC, environmentalists had been raising concerns about what they say are changes that have been made to the province’s wetlands policy, essentially weakening it. *

The CBC followed up with officials from the Environment Department, who said no changes have been made and that what was provided internally to staff was a “routine clarification” of the province’s policy with respect to wetlands.

According to the documents shared with the CBC, officials with the department say that, “effective immediately, the designation of wetlands of special significance would be limited to:

• Wetlands known to support threatened and endangered species only, and exclude vulnerable/special concern species (for which there are no prohibitions to harm).

• Only a portion of a wetland directly supporting species at risk, as determined by a qualified expert.

• The portion of wetlands that overlap with a designated Ramsar site (sites of international importance), provincial wildlife management area, provincial park, nature reserve, wilderness area or lands owned or legally protected by non-government charitable conservation land trusts.

• Wetlands where a proponent at the time of their application, through their own fieldwork, has included an observation of a species at risk in the wetland and the wetland meets the habitat requirements of that species. Databases of historic occurrences of species at risk will no longer be considered.”

The reporting on the subject focused, correctly, on criticism of the so-called clarification, which appears to now limit wetland protection to only those areas that are shown to “directly” support species at risk (whatever that means), with no recognition of past/ historical occurrences. It truly is an abomination. But there was also a significant omission.

Nova Scotia’s Wetland Conservation Policy, published in 2011 but revised in 2019, is very clear in how the policy is to be implemented and managed. The document states that the first objective of the policy is:

to manage human activity in or near wetlands, with the goal of no loss in Wetlands of Special Significance and the goal of preventing net loss in area and function for other wetlands.

In the 2011 document, “all salt marshes” is the first thing listed under the headline “Government will consider the following to be WSS.”

In other words, all salt marshes are Wetlands of Special Significance and must be protected.

However, in the department of Environment’s clarification document, reported by the CBC — which I’ve requested a copy of — there appears to be no mention of salt marshes, anywhere.

Was it just an oversight? Perhaps the policy statement — being so clear in it’s intent with regards to salt marshes — doesn’t require a clarification. That is certainly my hope. Or perhaps the omission was intended to remove any special handling of salt marshes when it comes to wetland protection. The Quaking Swamp Journal contacted the Department of Environment to find out what’s going on and will report back here once a response is received.

* This piece originally stated that the concerns are rooted in wetland alteration approvals that were granted for the Eisner Cove-Mount Hope area of Dartmouth. But, according to an email received after this piece was published, from Elizabeth MacDonald, NS Department of Environment’s Director of Communications, the “email clarification has absolutely no connection to the Southdale-Mount Hope [aka Eisner Cove development] alteration approval.”